Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Electric Eels

"One fine morning in May, a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding aglossy sorrel mare along the avenues of the Bois, among the flowers..."
-Albert Camus

the eyeball of hell

or How One Single Man's Expectation of SelfBecomes the Hopes and Dreams of the Lumpen Prole

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of... oops! ...There once was a time whence a triumvirate of comrades, all three reluctant matriculantites of Lakewood High School (home of the immensely nancified football team the "Lakewood Rangers"), went unto see-eth Captain Beefheart, and were so fucking disgustedeth with "Left End," the opening act, that I, John "Broken Hand" ® Morton, saideth unto my band of stalwart helpmates, "Compañeros, even we can do better than these trifling mother fucking fucks."

And untowards forth was borneth,The Electric Eels
A name that will live in infamy.
It was me [I], Brian McMahon, and Dave McManus. Brian and I [me] already played guitar so Dave was the singer. The year: 1972.

One fine Saturday in May in the way-early seventies, Peter paid a social call on me in my parents' suburban enclave in Lakewood (from his parents' suburban enclave in Bay Village.) At some point in the festivities, Peter had to use the facilities and bizarrely, as it turned out, removed his sunglasses and placed them on the chair he had occupied. On his return he sat on them. He looked at me (knowing I had known) and holding the broken frames queried, "Why didn't you stop me?" My heartfelt reply, "I thought you did it on purpose."
I was physically unable to wear sunglasses till I was 47 as a consequence of this landmark transpiration.The best thing to come out of Cleveland was Ghoulardi, and he's dead, so there's absolutely no point in going there now.
In Cle, we ended up sharing a loft with Rocket from the Tombs / Pere Ubu and Frankenstein / the Dead Boys. We didn't have a lot in common with either of them. We were of extremely divergent musical styles and life styles.
Quite frankly, Stiv watched Davy a lot. I mean like a way-lot. I mean, like Stiv like "studied" Dave E.'s stage presence very studiously like a way way lot. Got it? And it's like way-typical of Stiv not to be around to deny my accusations.
When "Rockets" broke up to become "Ubu" they fired their drummer, Wayne Strick, who took his revenge by pulling a station wagon up and stealing our equipment. The cops, ever helpful, suggested we go to his house and steal it back.
It is my understanding that as a young lieutenant in 'nam, Wayne was the victim of fragging. 37 grenades were thrown into his tent. One for each and every dogface in his unit.

The Grievously Unreleased MaterialBlack Leather Rock The unemployed Eels were sitting around one mournful Monday morning watching TV and saw the Hammer film, "These Are The Damned" (the English title was "The Damned") with Oliver Reed as a teddy boy, "King", who was about as convincing a character as Harvey Lembeck . A teddy-girl sings "Black Leather Rock" a cappella with exquisite youthful exuberance several times throughout the cine. Dave thought it was way-cool and we should do it. One full year later, Paul, tired of hearing Davey endlessly go on about it made us arrange it from memory (The first line actually is "Black leather, black leather rock, rock, rock...") The composer, James Bernard, said of it in an interview: